Educating in Indian country, I learned more than I taught; and immersed in the classroom with Native American teenagers, I had the reality check every teacher goes through at some point: the kids are smarter than us!
There isn’t enough time to talk about all the amazing and interesting experiences that define those three years (sad face…), but here are some highlights (happy face!):
- National History Day – the students took the driver’s seat and we just helped them tell their (research) stories, including topics such as the Rough Rock Demonstration School, uranium mining on the Navajo reservation, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, and civil disobedience.
I learned a lot.
- The Pueblo of Jemez Department of Education – attending their annual Education conference, the participants included tribal officials, teachers and administrators from the schools on the reservation and in the local community, the language team, the cafeteria staff, parents, students, alumni, grandmas, coaches, aunties… true community engagement!
I learned a whole lot.
- Young Native Writers Essay Contest – this yearly competition asks students to research and present the solution to a challenge facing their tribal community, and our kids came up with ideas addressing topics like water rights, health, tribal membership, and education.
I learned things I should have already known.
- Talk Box – working with the Bear clan (a subcommittee of our student council) we put a box in the counseling office where students could ask anonymous questions, and at our meetings, which included a guidance counselor, student government representatives, nurse practitioner, the dean, and the student council advisor (me!), we discussed the answers and wrote them up into newsletters.
I learned that there was a whole lot more that I needed to learn.
I can go on, but I have to edit myself – I’m writing this post to recognize National Native American Heritage Month! There isn’t an official theme, but the Office of the Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior has adopted "Native Pride and Spirit: Yesterday, Today and Forever" for 2014.
The two things I am compelled to share were impressed upon me by a museum educator: 1, there is incredible diversity in the American Indian community and 2, understanding Native culture is about way more than memorizing dates from the past! Most of what I have learned is focused on the Generation X and millennial experiences of college friends and students in my classes.
Contemporary lives such as theirs are reflected in books like If I Ever Get Out of Here, where a Tuscarora middle schooler shares his love of the Beatles (and hides his poverty) from a new friend, and Who Will Tell My Brother?, where a Mohawk high schooler tries to rid his school of the Indian mascot. For authoritative book lists, check out “Resources and Kid Lit About American Indians” and “I is for Inclusion”, both by Debbie Reese. To address current events in a lesson this month, try a read aloud from Indian Country Today Media Network.
Wopila students! Thank you for the lessons learned.
